Captain Groh’s calm hand sinks Pirate ship

Down 6-0 late in the first quarter, things could have snowballed on Virginia’s football team Saturday.

The situation presented a perfect opportunity for a Cavaliers meltdown. Visiting East Carolina, a six-point favorite, was coming off consecutive losses and felt it had a point to prove. Once ranked among the nation’s top 15 teams after upsets over Virginia Tech and West Virginia in the first two weeks of the season, the Pirates figured UVa was ripe for the picking.

Had the Cavaliers still been beating their chests over last week’s stunning upset over Maryland, it might have been somewhat understandable. With many students gone for fall break, Scott Stadium was at less than capacity and volume, especially for a noon start, which historically hasn’t been a preferred starting time for an athletic event around Hooville.

A team on a mission

Instead, Virginia battled back, owned a 22-point lead, fought off an ECU surge, and went on to a 35-20 win, evening its record at 3-3 midway through the season.

Give coach Al Groh and his staff a slap on the back for inspiring the Cavs to keep fighting after a 1-3 start, which at one point appeared disastrous.

With rumors swirling all week about Groh’s future with the program, he stuck to his knitting in leading Virginia to a second straight upset win.

“I’m just happy for our players and that they’re able to experience afternoons like this,” Groh said after one sportswriter asked if he felt any vindication from the heavy criticism he faced. “It has pretty much always been the case and always will — whatever feelings I have about anything other than the game and our team are my feelings, and they’ll aways remain my feelings.”

Groh told everyone back in July that this would be an evolving team that should get better as the season progressed. After a lopsided loss to then-No. 1 Southern California, then losing his starting quarterback the third week into the season, the scenario around the program couldn’t have been much worse.

Never say die

Well, yes, they could have, actually. The coaches, Groh in particular, could have lost faith. He could have lost the team. He could have seen the whole season go down the tubes.

But that’s not Groh’s style.

“The reason why we’ve been able to bounce back the way we have is because of the resolve of the coaching staff,” said sophomore quarterback Marc Verica, who has benefited greatly from the positive outlook of Groh and the staff. “They don’t get down on us, they don’t get discouraged. They just keep on supporting us and encouraging us. They know we are better than what we were showing and we have fed off of their energy.”

Verica is one of several perfect examples of why this team has turned the Good Ship Wahoo around. After four interceptions in a close game that went awry in the second half at Duke, Verica has been stone cold solid ever since.

Against Maryland and ECU, he completed 50 of 66 pass attempts for 442 yards and three touchdowns and two interceptions, one of which wasn’t his fault.

Verica’s confidence could have been shot after the Duke landslide, but instead his improved play has been part of the resurgence of Virginia’s offense, earlier ranked the worst in the land.

Over the past two weeks, the Cavs have put up 66 points and assembled back-to-back games of more than 400 yards of total offense, the latter a figure no Cavalier team has matched since the end of the 2005 season. It has been equally as long since a UVa quarterback completed 25 passes in a game, something Verica has accomplished the last two outings.

A young offensive line, featuring two freshmen, a sophomore and a junior to go along with standout senior Eugene Monroe, has gotten dramatically better week-by-week, and star tailback Cedric Peerman has hit his stride.

“You look at Virginia’s playing really good football right now,” said ECU coach Skip Holtz. “I think they’re a good football team.”

Certainly at home they are. Saturday’s win gave the Cavaliers 37 home wins since 2001 (the start of the Groh era), which equal the most wins at home by any ACC team.

Against the Pirates, the Cavs did everything a good football team would be expected to do.

They ran the ball successfully, 202 yards on the ground (6.1 yards per rush), and they stopped the run (ECU had 89 yards rushing). Virginia scored both times it reached the red zone, committed only three penalties for 20 yards, gambled when necessary (converting two of three fourth-down dares) and sacked elusive Pirates quarterback Patrick Pinkney six times.

When it came time for some trickeration, Groh pulled one out of the bag, a fake field goal that resulted in a 12-yard touchdown pass from holder Scott Deke to uncovered tight end John Phillips.

Perhaps there was a measure of revenge going back to Virginia’s 31-21 loss at ECU two years ago.

“We practice that over and over again and wait for the right opportunity,” said UVa linebacker Clint Sintim. “If you’ll recall a couple of years ago [ECU] ran a fake field goal on us when they were up significantly. It was talked about all week.”

Both elephants and coaches have long memories.

This isn’t the same football team that stunk up the joint at UConn and let things spin out of control in the second half at Duke.

Those were learning experiences for Verica and his line. Peerman, who became only the second player in UVa history to record two runs of 60 or more yards on Saturday (79 and 60), wasn’t himself in Hartford and didn’t play at Duke.

“All we did was our job,” said Monroe, already projected as a first-round draft choice next April. “We got everybody blocked up like we needed to and Cedric did his thing.”

That hasn’t always been the case this season with a young line. Perhaps more than any other unit on a football squad, the offensive line has to work with precision and in cohesion, something that isn’t built over night. There’s a lot of trust involved, and as former UVa All-America guard Elton Brown once said, ‘If you look over at the guy lined up beside you and you see fear in his eyes, you know it’s going to be a long afternoon.”

That fear seems to have subsided and has been replaced by trust.

Verica’s progress is more noticeable to the untrained eye.

Groh used the word significant to describe his quarterback’s progress over the past couple of weeks.

“The [adjustment to the] speed of the game is as much as anything,” Groh said of Verica. “Even in scrimmages for the past three years he hasn’t seen defensive players moving as fast as they do in a game. He’s adjusted to that nicely.”

Peerman’s deeds speak for themselves. The “Running Reverend” put up 110 on the Terps and 173 on the Pirates.

All this has been accomplished in spite of 22 Cavaliers making their first collegiate appearances.

However, all this progress may not account for much if Virginia can’t keep its momentum against visiting North Carolina next Saturday.

One thing’s for sure. Groh and his coaches will remain positive.

“We trust each other, which is all that counts,” the embattled head coach said. “We stick together and we really don’t listen to praise or criticism.”

As Sintim said of Groh after the game: “He’s a professional. He handles himself as such. After the Duke game, obviously he wasn’t happy. At the same time, he wasn’t yelling and screaming. He knows we’re giving our best effort. Coach Groh puts us in position to capitalize on the positive things we do and tries to fix the negative things we do. We follow him and we trust him.”

A third straight upset next weekend wouldn’t hurt things, either.